The brain is a complicated thing — scientists have shown that the brain doesn’t fully develop until a person is 25 years old, making risky behaviour and the use of alcohol and drugs an impediment toward that development.
Matthew Lamont, a Memorial University PhD student, is studying binge drinking as part of his thesis.
Lamont’s presentation on “Binge Drinking: A Risky Idea and Research Agrees” finished in second place at the 3rd annual Snappy Synopsis event held recently at the Memorial University school of pharmacy.
His study looks at subjects in various age categories and what constitutes binge drinking in adolescents (age 12-16 years) and the problems caused by it.
Lamont’s research, and that of others, shows this practice can lead to serious health issues, including potential issues with memory, balance and co-ordination and anxiety, even after a moderate period of adolescent binge drinking.
Movement disorders and, in particular, part of the brain called the cerebellum, are key in his studies. He points to a spot on the back of his skull, just above the top of his neck, as the spot the cerebellum is located.
Lamont said the cerebellum controls fine motor co-ordination, balance and movements, things you would use in any kind of sporting activity, musicians for playing the piano, violin etc.
He is looking at some of the basic changes that happen in this area of the brain, as well as a few others that are of interest to everyone.
“I hope to see humanity’s better understanding of how the brain works in this situation and how it responds to high levels of alcohol, especially at an early age,” he said.
“We have to know the basic mechanisms in order to know how to fix some of this damage that is happening, so that is something we have looked at as an intervention and we are actually moving forward the project to feed the animals a diet high in antioxidants.”
In addition, his research has shown that binge drinking causes additional proteins to form in the brain. Memory issues can occur due to this, in addition to anxiety issues and lack of inhibitions forming due to these proteins.
Lamont said it is heard a lot in the media that blueberries, anything rich in antioxidants, are good for you. He says he has examined preliminary results in other studies showing this to be true.
“We don’t know if it’s effective with alcohol yet, and the damage that it may cause in the brain, so we want to see if that is a protective effect of that as well. In addition, we’re looking at some markers we can measure in the brain that look at inflammation.”
Inflammation is another big health research aspect. A lot of diseases are being found to involve inflammation of various tissues, and not just the inflammation you get when you get a bug bite or a scratch on your skin. It’s kind of red and swells up, but this is happening inside of your body, inside the brain, in your organs, various tissues, etc.
“We think that this is also a major force driving these deficits that we are seeing in our model,” Lamont said.
He said they want to examine this further to see if subjects may wind up with a lot of inflammation in the brain that is causing subtle impairments.
These impairments, he said, would be subtle on a day-to-day basis. In a human, you may not recognize they have some deficits, but they are still there and it seems like eight times out of 10 that researchers see this in a rat model, it is likely to be seen in humans.
Some of the basic changes there are leading to global effects, and there is a commonality between different disease states, Lamont says.
“So one of the states that we’re studying is this binge drinking model which is one of the more interesting aspects of the research we do,” he said.
“Binge drinking is a large public health concern. It actually has been shrinking in recent years, but it’s levelled off more recently.
“About 17 per cent of high school students reported binge drinking in the last 30 days, so that is five to six drinks in one session.”
Drinking in adolescence is discouraged by parents and by the public health system in general because the adolescent brain is different and is more vulnerable than the adult brain.
“Up to age 25, the brain is still developing, so that is why we have legal drinking ages, 19, 21. Some may argue they are a bit low, and maybe they are, but they still are a lot safer than the younger ages that we are looking at in my project,” Lamont said.
“We actually really look at the adolescent age point. Looking at, in a human range, anywhere from age 12 to 16, or thereabouts. Some people think, oh, well my child doesn’t do this,’ ‘this doesn’t happen with me.’ But again, 17 per cent have reported it in the last 30-days, so it is obviously an issue. We think there are some long-term effects that are happening because of it.”
Lamont said rats were used in a laboratory to mimic the adolescent brain and the alcohol was vaporized, pumped into a chamber and fed to the rats in this fashion so there were not great spikes in alcohol in their systems.
It’s a close model of the process that really happens.
Some of the effects have been seen through a few different testing methods of animals after they have been treated. Researchers examine them for what’s known as behaviourial testing, which looks at the behaviour of the animal. There is a battery of tests performed of different functions that are well validated, and have been used for 50-60 years in the scientific literature, so there can be a comparison of results to research other people have done in the past.
“What we are seeing is directly after the treatment with the alcohol, up until about 30 or 40 days afterwards, we see significant motor impairments. The rats can’t balance anymore as well as their non-treated cohorts. In addition, they are not learning anymore,” Lamont said.
He used the analogy of a child learning to throw with a parent. Throwing a ball back and forth, he said, if you do it enough, you get better.
